Learning soldering and repairs with electronics practice kits

I've been tinkering with a cheap soldering iron before, but this was always keeping me from getting into hardware electroncis projects. It was about time to get this skill sorted, so I dove into the youtube rabbit hole of soldering (thanks nanofix and joeydoestech), bought some soldering gear and started practicing the basics that really help practical soldering: tip cleaning with brass, proper heat management of the iron and project, flux and leaded solder, I also picked some soldering kits to experiment, such as the Velleman WSEDU08, that helps you get some actual practice before you work on real world repairs

After the practice kit, I started churning through the repair projects that had been lining up the years before. Finally putting some headers on a microcontroller development boards, wiring a display and battery for a LoRa board, replacing the clock capacitor in an original Xbox. The new soldering skill has also broadened my hardware modification skills, if you're interested definitely check out my growatt wifi stick esphome modification.